I have just returned from a three week sailing trip across to Tasmania and cant get my head around a little computer problem that I have, any assistance would be most appreciated.
I have an ARL 3460 OES Spectrometer which is controlled by proprietary software (WIN OES v2.1) which is can be loaded into Windows 95 environment only. The upgrade to Windows 7 software (OXAXIS) costs about $15k and is out of the question at that price. On Monday when I went to fire up the old Windows 95 computer things remained blank. Most probably the graphics card but it was pretty full of mouse droppings and dust in the case. Tried a whole assortment of cards but none seemed to work. None of the local computer stores or SH computer shops have stuff for old computers anymore. I installed the hard drive into another old retired computer and got part of the way through booting up before it hung up.
I then downloaded Virtual Computer 2004 which is host compatible with Windows XP and guest compatible with Windows 95. Downloaded Acronis Image Maker and made a backup of the spectrometer W95 hardrive. What I have is a fully functional hardrive with W95 OS, the Spectrometer Software and all of the callibration data and results for the past several years. I also have the original Spectrometer Software CD and callibration data on floppy discs. I do not have a Windows 95 installation or boot disk.
I think that I need a Windows 95 installation disk. Anyone know where I can get one? Then can anyone guide me through the process of setting up a Windows 95 virtual computer on my XP host. Is it possible to restore the backed up spectrometer W95 hardrive in the virtual computer and then as if by magic simply press start and see it boot up.(with or without the W95 installation disk). I have set up a virtual W95 computer but am really out of my depth already and it keeps asking for the boot disk.
Cheers
Frant